Friday, January 08, 2010

The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Underfunded Public Pensions as “Stranded” Costs? Two Trillion Dollars?: "Two trillion dollars? One question about these obligations is whether taxpayers will stick around to pay them, or instead will vote with their feet. (“Vote with their feet” is something that has been discussed in various ways at VC — as an aspect of a federal system and states with their own laws.) Many of these pension obligations have been incurred by municipalities and others by states, and in some cases the obligations are intertwined. But what happens if voters-taxpayers move out?"----------What, indeed?

Matthew Yglesias » The Looming Public Pension Disaster: "High up on my list of sources of national doom that people don’t talk about enough is the looming fiasco in pensions for state and local public employees. For obvious reasons, no governor or mayor wants to raise taxes or cut spending to give public employees a raise. But a public employee strike is also bad politics. So you can promise people generous amounts of money in the future via a defined benefit pension plan, and kick the can down the road."----------This is going to be a train wreck.

The Way We Live Now - Walk Away From Your Mortgage! - NYTimes.com: "Time was, Americans would do anything to pay their mortgage — forgo a new car or a vacation, even put a younger family member to work. But the housing collapse left 10.7 million families owing more than their homes are worth. So some of them are making a calculated decision to hang onto their money and let their homes go. Is this irresponsible?"--------------You be the judge.

Yes. Mesa keeps track of homeowners associations in the city and currently has 412 of them on file. The Neighborhood Services Department regularly works to connect them with city resources and help them deal with their particular challenges."------------Six sessions at ten bucks each, and Nirvana is just around the corner.

Condo Law: "In this time of increasing foreclosure lawsuits, many communities are likely to see a new visitor at their gates-the process server!"---------So no call-aheads from the front gate so the deadbeat can flee.

Fannie Mae Launches 'Special Approval' Designation to Support Florida Condo Market: "Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) announced today that it is undertaking a comprehensive review of hundreds of condominium projects in the state of Florida in an effort to allow additional projects to become Fannie Mae-eligible through a new 'Special Approval' designation."----------That's because Fannie Mae killed the Miami condo market when they stiffened up their eligibility requirements a while back. Now they are going to discover all sorts of exceptions that allow these sales to go through. Then lots of people who have no job will be able to buy condos--just like before summer of 2008! Won't that be great! Just kidding. The US government would never do a thing like that.

2010 Furlough AnnouncementThe University of Illinois has told us that all administrators and faculty are now being furloughed. Four days without pay.

In the press, it is business as usual. Will Lovie Smith be fired as coach of the Bears? Rod Blagojevich will be on Donald Trump's show! But while the press and the sheeple go about their business, the State of Illinois is following Michigan and California into the fiscal toilet. The state isn't paying doctors. It isn't even sending agencies like the U of I the funds the legislature appropriated for them. The state is tens of billions in arrears to the state employee pension funds.

As the President of the U of I says:"...we now face a cash crisistriggered by the state’s financial situation which is grimand worsening. The state budget is out of balance with abacklog of unpaid bills nearing $5 billion and short-termborrowing covering roughly a comparable amount. Thestate’s credit rating has been recently downgraded andamong the 50 states only California is worse."

Only California is worse. But with the government we have here in Illinois, no doubt we can plunge below the Golden State in short order.

Change of Subject: Time to get serious about prison termsIn which reliably liberal columnist Eric Zorn finally figures out what prisons are for. He has spent more ink crusading against prosecutors and police than anybody on the Tribune staff--but the Derrick King case (see below) set him off.

Monday, January 04, 2010

LiveLeak.com - VIOLENT ATTACK SHATTERS LIVES,but attacker released earlyHere is the Chicago "justice" system in action. In August 2008, Derrick King, a homeless piece of garbage living at the Pacific Garden Mission (1458 S. Canal St., Chicago) and his bum companion, Joyce Burgess, demanded cigarettes from a couple leaving a convenience store at Wabash and Roosevelt in downtown Chicago. The couple turned them down. King and Burgess attacked them. King kicked out most of her teeth and left her with brain damage. Read the details if you can stand it. She will never fully recover, physically or emotionally.

His sentence? Three years in prison for robbery. Apparently these two maggots stole a Blackberry after the attack. The sentence is a joke to begin with. It should have been more like 30 years instead of three. That is the Chicago judiciary for you.

But it gets worse. Our liberal Democrat, soft-touch, nice-guy governor, Pat Quinn, authorized an early release program called the "Meritorious Good Time Program" for 1700 convicts. King was one of them. He spent 13 months in the Cook County Jail while his case dragged on in the Chicago court system. Then he copped a plea, went into prison to start his 3 year joke sentence on October 6, 2009, and was released on October 20, 2009, two weeks later. Quinn and his flacks claim that no violent offenders were released under this program. Right. Keep lying.

But it gets even worse. The day King was released, October 20, 2009, he did the same thing again. He accosted a woman, demanded cigarettes, was told no, and then attacked her, saying, "Remember the couple who got beat real bad for not giving a cigarette? That was me!"

He's back in jail again.

There are violent, angry homeless people demanding money all around the Chicago downtown area. They know the system is a big farce and are not the least bit afraid of it. Why should they be? Yet we can't carry guns or any other significant weapon to protect ourselves from them.

About Me

I am a professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and an adjunct professor at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago. Nothing contained in this blog represents the opinions of UIC or John Marshall, and nothing you see here is legal advice. You can reach me at ecmlaw@gmail.com